Quentin Durward by Walter Scott (good romance books to read TXT) 📖

for me but one moment,” exclaimed Quentin to De la Marck, and sprang to extricate his benefactress from a situation of which he conjectured all the dangers.

“I wait no man's pleasure,” said De la Marck, flourishing his mace, and beginning to retreat—glad, no doubt, at being free of so formidable an assailant.

“You shall wait mine, though, by your leave,” said Balafre; “I will not have my nephew baulked.”

So saying, he instantly assaulted De la Marck with his two handed sword.

Quentin found, in the meanwhile, that the rescue of Gertrude was a task more difficult than could be finished in one moment. Her captor, supported by his comrades, refused to relinquish his prize: and whilst Durward, aided by one or two of his countrymen, endeavoured to compel him to do so, the former beheld the chance which Fortune had so kindly afforded him for fortune and happiness glide out of his reach; so that when he stood at length in the street with the liberated Gertrude, there was no one near them. Totally forgetting the defenceless situation of his companion, he was about to spring away in pursuit of the Boar of Ardennes, as the greyhound tracks the deer, when, clinging to him in her despair, she exclaimed, “For the sake of your mother's honour, leave me not here!—As you are a gentleman, protect me to my father's house, which once sheltered you and the Lady Isabelle!—For her sake leave me not!”

Her call was agonizing, but it was irresistible; and bidding a mental adieu, with unutterable bitterness of feeling, to all the gay hopes which had stimulated his exertion, carried him through that bloody day, and which at one moment seemed to approach consummation, Quentin, like an unwilling spirit who obeys a talisman which he cannot resist, protected Gertrude to Pavillon's house, and arrived in time to defend that and the Syndic himself against the fury of the licentious soldiery.

Meantime the King and the Duke of Burgundy entered the city on horseback and through one of the breaches. They were both in complete armour, but the latter, covered with blood from the plume to the spur, drove his steed furiously up the breach, which Louis surmounted with the stately pace of one who leads a procession. They dispatched orders to stop the sack of the city, which had already commenced, and to assemble their scattered troops. The Princes themselves proceeded towards the great church, both for the protection of many of the distinguished inhabitants who had taken refuge there, and in order to hold a sort of military council after they had heard high mass.

Busied, like other officers of his rank, in collecting those under his command, Lord Crawford, at the turning of one of the streets which leads to the Maes, met Le Balafre sauntering composedly towards the river, holding in his hand, by the gory locks, a human head with as much indifference as a fowler carries a game pouch.

“How now, Ludovic!” said his commander; “what are ye doing with that carrion?”

“It is all that is left of a bit of work which my nephew shaped out and nearly finished and I put the last hand to,” said Le Balafre, “a good fellow that I dispatched yonder and who prayed me to throw his head into the Maes.—Men have queer fancies when old Small Back [a cant expression in Scotland for Death, usually delineated as a skeleton. S.] is gripping them, but Small Back must lead down the dance with us all in our time.”

“And you are going to throw that head into the Maes?” said Crawford, looking more attentively on the ghastly memorial of mortality.

“Ay, truly am I,” said Ludovic testily. “If you refuse a dying man his boon, you are likely to be haunted by his ghost, and I love to sleep sound at nights.”

“You must take your chance of the ghaist, man,” said Crawford; “for, by my soul, there is more lies on that dead pow than you think for. Come along with me—not a word more—Come along with me.”

“Nay, for that matter,” said Le Balafre, “I made him no promise; for, in truth, I had off his head before the tongue had well done wagging; and as I feared him not living, by St. Martin of Tours, I fear him as little when he is dead. Besides, my little gossip, the merry Friar of St. Martin's, will lend me a pot of holy water.”

When high mass had been said in the Cathedral Church of Liege and the terrified town was restored to some moderate degree of order, Louis and Charles, with their peers around, proceeded to hear the claims of those who had any to make for services performed during the battle. Those which respected the County of Croye and its fair mistress were first received, and to the disappointment of sundry claimants, who had thought themselves sure of the rich prize, there seemed doubt and mystery to involve their several pretensions. Crevecoeur showed a boar's hide, such as De la Marck usually wore; Dunois produced a cloven shield with his armorial bearings; and there were others who claimed the merit of having dispatched the murderer of the Bishop, producing similar tokens—the rich reward fixed on De la Marck's head having brought death to all who were armed in his resemblance.

There was much noise and contest among the competitors, and Charles, internally regretting the rash promise which had placed the hand and wealth of his fair vassal on such a hazard, was in hopes he might find means of evading all these conflicting claims, when Crawford pressed forward into the circle, dragging Le Balafre after him, who, awkward and bashful, followed like an unwilling mastiff towed on in a leash, as his leader exclaimed, “Away with your hoofs and hides and painted iron!—No one, save he who slew the Boar, can show the tusks!”

So saying, he flung on the floor the bloody head, easily known as that of De la Marck by the singular conformation of the jaws, which in reality had a certain resemblance to those of the animal whose name he bore, and which was instantly recognized by all who had seen him.

[We have already noticed the anachronism respecting the crimes of this atrocious baron; and it is scarce necessary to repeat, that if he in reality murdered the Bishop of Liege in 1482, the Count of La Marck could not be slain in the defence of Liege four years earlier. In fact, the Wild Boar of Ardennes, as he was usually termed, was of high birth, being the third son of John I, Count of La Marck and Aremberg, and ancestor of the branch called Barons of Lumain. He did not escape the punishment due to his atrocity, though it did not take place at the time, or in the manner, narrated in the text. Maximilian, Emperor of Austria, caused him to be arrested at Utrecht, where he was beheaded in the year 1485, three years after the Bishop of Liege's death. S.]

“Crawford,” said Louis, while Charles sat silent in gloomy and displeased surprise, “I trust it is one of my faithful Scots who has won this prize?”

“It is Ludovic Lesly, Sire, whom we call Le Balafre,” replied the old soldier.

“But is he noble?” said the Duke; “is he of gentle blood?—Otherwise our promise is void.”

“He is a cross, ungainly piece of wood enough,” said Crawford, looking at the tall, awkward, embarrassed figure of the Archer; “but I will warrant him a branch of the tree of Rothes for all that—and they have been as noble as any house in France or Burgundy ever since it is told of their founder that—

“'Between the less-lee and the mair, He slew the Knight, and left him there.'”

[An old rhyme by which the Leslies vindicate their descent from an ancient knight, who is said to have slain a gigantic Hungarian champion, and to have formed a proper name for himself by a play of words upon the place where he fought his adversary. S.]

“There is then no help for it,” said the Duke, “and the fairest and richest heiress in Burgundy must be the wife of a rude mercenary soldier like this, or die secluded in a convent—and she the only child of our faithful Reginald de Croye!—I have been too rash.”

And a cloud settled on his brow, to the surprise of his peers, who seldom saw him evince the slightest token of regret for the necessary consequences of an adopted resolution.

“Hold but an instant,” said the Lord Crawford, “it may be better than your Grace conjectures. Hear but what this cavalier has to say.—Speak out, man, and a murrain to thee,” he added, apart to Le Balafre.

But that blunt soldier, though he could make a shift to express himself intelligibly enough to King Louis, to whose familiarity he was habituated, yet found himself incapable of enunciating his resolution before so splendid an assembly as that before which he then stood; and after having turned his shoulder to the princes, and preluded with a hoarse chuckling laugh, and two or three tremendous contortions of countenance, he was only able to pronounce the words, “Saunders Souplejaw”—and then stuck fast.

“May it please your Majesty and your Grace,” said Crawford, “I must speak for my countryman and old comrade. You shall understand that he has had it prophesied to him by a seer in his own land, that the fortune of his house is to be made by marriage; but as he is, like myself, something the worse for the wear—loves the wine house better than a lady's summer parlour, and, in short, having some barrack tastes and likings, which would make greatness in his own person rather an encumbrance to him, he hath acted by my advice, and resigns the pretentions acquired' by the fate of slaying William de la Marck, to him by whom the Wild Boar was actually brought to bay, who is his maternal nephew.”

“I will vouch for that youth's services and prudence,” said King Louis, overjoyed to see that fate had thrown so gallant a prize to one over whom he had some influence. “Without his prudence and vigilance, we had been ruined. It was he who made us aware of the night sally.”

“I, then,” said Charles, “owe him some reparation for doubting his veracity.”

“And I can attest his gallantry as a man at arms,” said Dunois.

“But,” interrupted Crevecoeur, “though the uncle be a Scottish gentillatre, that makes not the nephew necessarily so.”

“He is of the House of Durward,” said Crawford, “descended from that Allan Durward who was High Steward of Scotland.”

“Nay, if it be young Durward,” said Crevecoeur, “I say no more.—Fortune has declared herself on his side too plainly for me to struggle farther with her humoursome ladyship—but it is strange, from lord to horseboy, how wonderfully these Scots stick by each other.”

“Highlander shoulder to shoulder,” answered Lord Crawford, laughing at the mortification of the proud Burgundian.

“We have yet to inquire,” said Charles thoughtfully, “what the fair lady's sentiments may be towards this fortunate adventurer.”

“By the mass” said Crevecoeur, “I have but too much reason to believe your Grace will find her more amenable to authority than on former occasions.—But why should I grudge this youth his preferment? Since, after all, it is sense, firmness, and gallantry which have put him in possession of WEALTH, RANK, and BEAUTY!”

I had already sent these sheets to the press, concluding, as I thought, with a moral of excellent tendency for the encouragement of all fair haired, blue eyed, long legged, stout hearted emigrants from my native country, who might be willing in stirring times to take up the gallant profession of Cavalieros of Fortune. But a friendly monitor, one of those who, like the lump of sugar which is found at the bottom of a tea cup, as well as the flavour of the souchong itself, has entered a bitter remonstrance, and insists that I should give a precise and particular account of the espousals of the young heir of Glen Houlakin and the lovely Flemish Countess, and tell what tournaments were held, and how many lances were broken, upon so interesting an occasion; nor withhold from the curious reader the number of sturdy boys who inherited the valour of Quentin Durward, and of bright damsels, in whom were renewed the charms of Isabelle de Croye. I replied, in course of post, that times were changed, and public weddings were entirely out of fashion. In days traces of which I myself can remember, not only were the “fifteen friends” of the happy pair invited to witness their Union, but the bridal minstrelsy still continued, as in the “Ancient Mariner,” to “nod their heads” till morning shone on them. The sack posset was eaten